On March 1, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam presented Dr. Bob “JJ” Orth the Virginia Outstanding Scientist Award. This award is for a scientist who has made globally significant contributions to their field. I am so glad that Bob is being recognized in this manner. I have worked with Bob for 30 years. Over that period, I have co-authored proposals, papers and various reports with him.

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One of my favorite quotes is by Wilbur Wright, from Dayton, Ohio. He said “If I were giving a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother, and begin life in Ohio.” I was incredibly fortunate to do exactly that.

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I recently attended a meeting in Maryland Senator Ben Cardin’s office in the Senate Hart Building. The meeting was with congressional staffers and representatives from a diversity of governmental agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Government Services Administration. The topic of the meeting was the potential relocation of the offices of the Chesapeake Bay Program.

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Last semester, Heath Kelsey and I taught a Marine Estuarine and Environmental Science (MEES) course titled “Transdisciplinary Science For Environmental Problem Solving." Our three Integration and Application Network students, Suzi Spitzer, Vanessa Vargas and Natalie Peyronnin enrolled in the 2 credit course. Professor Michael “Dougo” Douglas from the University of Western Australia attended most classes, in spite of the fact that it was 10 pm - 12 am in Perth, Australia.

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We recently completed our course entitled: "Healthy Rivers for All: Setting the course for sustainability with river basin health report cards". The course was co-taught by Heath Kelsey, Simon Costanzo and me, supported by Suzi Spitzer, our excellent teaching assistant. We used our recently completed book, "Practitioner's Guide to Developing River Basin Health Report Cards," as the textbook. Our lectures were based on content in our newly-published Practitioner's Guide.

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Sixteen years ago, in 2002, I returned to UMCES as Vice President for Science Application. I was shocked at how much the Chesapeake Bay had degraded in my ten-year absence. In addition to the “Pfiesteria Hysteria,” chronic dead zones occurred each summer, mahogany tides were recurrent, crab harvests were down, oysters were virtually gone, and the water was visibly turbid. In the following year, 2003, three books were published that chronicled the woes of Chesapeake Bay:

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Love, fifteen, thirty, and forty are tennis scores, but they also represent my relationship with Chesapeake Bay. On November 29, 2017, I gave a presentation at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) as part of a four-part series about the Chesapeake photographer Robert de Gast (1936-2016). Through April of this year, CBMM is exhibiting 80 photographs curated from more than 10,000 by de Gast in their collection. My talk was titled “After de Gast:

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Group photo of Healthy Rivers for All team. We held a two-day retreat with our WWF colleagues at Horn Point Laboratory in December 2017. This gathering was somewhat melancholy because it was our last retreat with Simon Costanzo and Karin Krchnak. Simon is no longer based in the US, having moved back to Australia. Karin left WWF in early January 2018 to join the World Bank as the Manager of the 2030 Water Resources Group.

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At the request of Kathy Stecker from the Maryland Department of Environment, Steve Raabe from Opinion Works and I partnered in a session at the annual Maryland Water Monitoring Council meeting held at the Maritime Conference Center in Linthicum, MD. We called our session “Communicating Challenges and Successes in a Changing World.” The Integration and Application Network has collaborated with Steve Raabe and Opinion Works for many years, so this partnership was a natural fit.

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Last November 5, 2017, Suzi Spitzer and I attended a Collaborative Learning workshop during the 24th Coastal Estuarine Research Federation Conference in Providence, RI. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Christine Baumann Feurt of the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve Coastal Training Program. Attending this workshop was one of the highlights of my CERF experience.

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